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Q2 • 2021


SPOTLIGHT


WE’RE GIVING AWAY Our Favorite


Forever® Stamps!


You could WIN these three stamp sheets in our quarterly giveaway.


USPS Stamp Designs


“Which stamps would you like?” Anyone who has ever walked into a post office and purchased a book of stamps has pondered that question, even if only for a few seconds. Unless you are a stamp collector or a marketer using live or real stamps to enhance your direct mail, choosing a stamp is probably not something you ever gave much thought to until you were asked. Yet, somehow, choosing which stamp design we want to stick on our personal or professional mail gives us pause. Stamps are a medium used to carry the voices of topics and events, to celebrate holidays, people, sports, cultures, art, etc. “What does the stamp say about me?” “How does it brand me?” A live stamp, or real stamp placed on direct mail, appears to the recipient to be more personal and directed especially to them. Although you probably wouldn’t use first-class stamps on direct mail with tens of thousands of pieces, when you are mailing to a targeted group with a special announcement, invite, loyalty-program thank-you, or similar, a real stamp can move your direct mail from the junk-mail stack to the personal-mail stack. So, when were stamps first used, and how are their designs created?


The History of Stamps English schoolmaster Sir Rowland Hill changed the pricing system of mail forever when he published


a pamphlet in 1837 called Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Well, actually, it was. Hill argued that letters should be


charged based not on how far they traveled (as they had been up until then), but by their weight. He also said the post office should require prepayment in the form of stamps. Soon after, the first English adhesive stamp was printed in 1840. It featured a portrait of Queen Victoria. She would remain on all stamps for the next six decades. The United States jumped on


board in 1847, when Congress authorized 5- and 10-cent stamps. By 1860, more than 90 countries, colonies, and districts were using stamps. Multicolored stamps didn’t become the norm until the 1920s.


The Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee Like in most bureaucratic organizations, a committee—the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee—makes important decisions for the USPS, notably which stamp subjects and designs will be produced. Established in 1957, the committee is appointed by the postmaster general. There are currently 13 sitting members. The committee welcomes suggestions for stamp subjects that celebrate the American experience. Any proposal that meets the established criteria will be considered, but you need to be planning ahead if you think you’ve got


a winning idea. Because of the time required for research and approval, ideas for stamp subjects should be submitted at least three years prior to the proposed issuance year.


Stamp Design Artwork When the committee gives the okay for a stamp design, the stamp- development design team works with professional art directors, who work with designers, artists, illustrators, and photographers to produce the stamp art—one of the most visible forms of public art. The committee then decides if the stamp will be made by outside contractors or by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The committee started using outside contractors in the late 1980s, and currently 10 to 15 US printing firms are capable of making stamps that meet the USPS criteria. The postal service issues approximately 35 stamps each year; a small percentage of those stamp designs are created by artists new to stamp design. After the stamp is printed, samples are sent to the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union in Switzerland, where they are marked as samples (commonly perforated with a word such as specimen) and then distributed to member nations to help postal workers recognize other countries’ legitimate postage. In the end, we have a small piece of art that will last for generations. 


Scan the QR code or register online at:


modernlitho.com/Giveaways-Q2-2021


Americans Rally around Stamps How important are USPS stamps to the American people? When the postal service fell on hard financial times during the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of people flocked to social media to urge users to buy stamps. Even John Oliver, host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, teamed up with Stamps.com to release limited-edition stamps to benefit the agency. It seems only fitting. Stamps


have been used to raise huge sums of money for US charities over the years. More than one billion Breast Cancer Research stamps have been sold since 1998, raising more than $92 million for the cause. Likewise, the Save Vanishing Species stamp has raised $6.1 million to support the Multinational Species Conservation Funds programs since 2011. In 2020 alone, 13.7 billion US postage stamps were printed.


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